


Natural Talents

by Doyle



Category: Firefly
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Doyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl and her engines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natural Talents

One time, Zach Li - a boy her age back home, one she'd known all her life, his daddy a friend of Kaylee's from before Zach and her were born - he told Kaylee she couldn't be a mechanic when she grew up.

Kaylee paused where she'd been drawing spaceships in the dust track, tapping her stick on the ground while she thought. Sure didn't seem to make sense to her; hadn't she been fixing engines since she was old enough to hold a wrench? Hadn't she been watching her daddy at work since before that?

"Shi ma? How comes I can't?" she asked, not ready to call him a liar just yet. Zach was a year older than she was and had more school-learning, even if he couldn't tell a catalyzer from a hole in the head.

"'Cause you're a _girl_," Zach said. "Everybody knows girls can't be mechanics."

"Kaylee-girl," Daddy said that night at dinner, when she asked him, "someone got natural talent like yours, don't make no difference if they're girl, boy or bush monkey. Ain't nothing could stop you being a mech."

"See, that's the same as I said." She beamed at him over her stew, satisfied that Zach was wrong. Didn't hold it against him though, 'cause he was only a boy and it weren't his fault he didn't know better.

**

If folks asked her - they mostly don't, though her daddy did - Kaylee'd tell them how come she's so good at fixing things. Not like it's a big secret she has to keep to herself. All it is, is the engines tell her what's wrong and she makes it better.

By herself in her engine room, Kaylee listens to Serenity talk.

She's on her back, one hand pressed to the cool part of the casing where she can feel the rotator speed and slow. Her shoes are cast to the side, because the deck in here's warm and she likes to feel the ship under her toes. She keeps her eyes closed and the engine talks louder than all the other sounds in the ship, River singing in the kitchen or Simon and Jayne hollering at each other over some boy-thing. That all fades away and there's just Kaylee and Serenity and, through the walls, the peace of the black.

Most times, folks - excepting River, who talks to Serenity herself - don't stay too long in her engine room. Simon'd never say it, but she knows he hates the heat and the dirt; she's not sure if he's noticed yet how the grease never really comes away from beneath her nails. Zoe and Wash got other things to do. She made it a No Jaynes Allowed place after the last coupla times when he stepped on things and broke them.

Time to time the captain comes by, but he doesn't listen to the ship. She loves Mal dear as a brother, but he don't know engines. And he loves the boat like she does, but sometimes she thinks that when he talks about Serenity he just means the part that they move around in, and that's as silly as saying a person's just their skin. There's bones and organs and stuff she'd have to ask Simon the names for, and that's what makes the skin move around and be alive.

Here at the centre, this is the heart, pulsing under her back and fingers and the soles of her feet, making Kaylee smile to herself and breathe nearly in sync with it.

Her secret, the one that ain't a secret at all - it's just that engines and ships, they're ladies, and that's how they like being treated. She takes care and speaks nice, and they purr and turn over for her. Back home she knew some mechanics treated their engines worse than they treated their dogs, and their businesses never lasted long.

Serenity, she's the finest lady Kaylee ever known. Smooth, real nice manner, a way about her that says she's like Simon, born to better things but making her way with their crew anyways.

Rotator's a hair slow today - she's gonna have to take a look at that, could be a block in the G-line again - but it's hardly anything at all, and Serenity says she's feeling good.

_Shiny,_ she says back, thinking it as hard as she can and sending the thoughts through her fingers and feet and into the heart of Serenity. _You let me know if something's wrong, now, you hear?_

Around her, Serenity, her girl, her heart keeps beating. And they keep flying.


End file.
